Barriers

Pietro Barliario lived in Salerno in the 12th century and stories and legends are interwoven on him. It was said “Mago”, he was certainly an alchemist, and among the many magic he practiced it is said that he was able to fly. He was once sentenced to death, but escaped the executioner, leaving a donkey in his place.

His relations with the magic sciences inevitably led him to frequent the hellish inhabitants, and to have traffic with them. Once he bet he would build an aqueduct in one night, an aqueduct capable of bringing water throughout the city. He therefore asked Lucifer for help, so that he would entrust him with his infernal court to complete the enterprise. The Lord of the Abyss sent him a thousand devils to help, on condition that he was not in the city a single rooster, because their song would make the terrible builders escape.

All the roosters were killed by order of Barliario, except that of an old man, who hid his rooster in a tinozza. At sunset began the work of hell: the devils raised huge stones and placed them in order to build the arches of the aqueduct that stood majestic. But before the dawn came, the survivor rooster threw his song, and the devils, thinking that the day had arrived, fled, throwing at sea two great boulders, which ended up off Positano where still can be seen: they are the two islets called Li Galli. The Bridges of the Devil, as they are still called to Salerno, remained in the centuries, to testify that night in hell.

Barliario lived for a long time, staining himself with endless sins, but at the age of more than ninety years he repented of his sins. The confessor he went to to have absolution, told him that he could only give it to him if he went on one day to hear Mass in Rome, Santiago de Compostela, and in Jerusalem. Peter did not go out, and flying in a rump to a devil he went to the three cities within a single day. In front of the Holy Sepulchre, Peter really realized his sins and thought bitterly. Returning to Salerno he spent nights and days in penance in front of an image of a Crucifix, who finally bowed his head as a sign of forgiveness. And so Peter could die in the grace of the Lord.

To celebrate the miracle of the painting that knocked his head in Salerno he built a church, at the dedicated Crucifix, and established a great fair.